


Broken: AoT x OC/Reader

by xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx



Series: Paradis Rewritten [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22489027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx/pseuds/xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx
Summary: Welcome to the continuation of The Commander’s Secretary. Please start there.Note: If you're a reader insert purist save me your bullshit. Accept you will hate this and save me telling you how I feel.
Relationships: Erwin Smith & Reader, Erwin Smith/Original Character(s), Erwin Smith/Original Female Character(s), Erwin Smith/Reader, Levi & Erwin Smith, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Original Female Character(s), Levi/Erwin Smith, Levi/Erwin Smith/Reader, Levi/Other(s), Levi/Reader
Series: Paradis Rewritten [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618048
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	1. Something Wild: An Outlook on Reality

It wasn't that long ago that I spoke the words that held the crux of this journey.

Strength isn't about how much you can carry or what burdens you take on. It's about how few pieces are left behind each time you fall apart. Because you are going to crumble, but that doesn't mean your entire foundation dissolves into dust.

Keep moving forward.

Stop looking back.

Learn from the things that chip away at your reality, using them as the base for the cement that fortifies your core. Because it's not about how life affects you, because it will.It's about how you take it on and make it something that works for you, not against you.

I had been so proud of CS when I first wrote it. It was so filled with passion, so filled with everything I thought I loved and everything I had thought meant something. Forty some odd chapters in I realized that wasn't true. The things I had written, the things I had felt were slowly tearing me apart. By the time the last known chapter was written I was sick of heart and dispassionate. It was no longer the tale of love and loss and unexpected twists.I had tried too hard to make it a success and not just let it tell the story it was meant to be. Now, sitting down in my room illuminated only by the dark mode lit computer as OneNote stood motionless like a canvas awaiting the muse of creation to whisk it away in a flurry of passion and sightless words, I found the emotions still held behind a barrier of informed ideas and past failures.

What exactly was this story to me? How was it the embodiment of the broken soul we had both become? There was no right answer because there were too many answers. Plugging in my earphones and switching from the chaotic bipolar rotation of Pandora's playlist, I selected Lindsey Sterling's album Brave Enough, which also happened to be the name of one of the turning point chapters for CS. Laughing slightly I muse at how full circle things are.

"Some things just take time." I whisper softly as the words to 'Where do we go' ring out in my head.

We're dreaming

We're dreaming, aren't we?

'Cause you're still with me sometimes when I sleep

This hallway, I'll walk it bravely

And all the cliffs and faultlines in between

Now that I'm older, now that it's colder

Life keeps on crashing

Day after day, like a wave after wave

We did everything right and now I'm asking

"Now where do we go from here you and me?" It wasn't a question I expected an answer to. In truth, I wasn't in any rush to get the answer. Too many things had gone wrong between the first time I put fingers to keys and this moment. Life hadn't come together like the puzzle I had tried to create when I aimed to connect the AoT fandom with a story similar and yet completely unlike any in its truth to anything they had read before. "So naively ambitious." I smile tiredly as I reach for my 'Opps did I buy wine instead of milk again' wine glass.

That's the way I had always been. Big dreams, bigger stubborn streak, and a sharp tongue. Nothing could stand in my way when I put my mind to it and be damned anyone who thought they could hold me back.Not much had changed in the year since I had written CS. The biggest difference actually came as a result of everything during and after it was an established story. All the people I met who became my followers as the story unfolded on social media and then stayed even when there was really nothing left for them to enjoy as well as the ones who commented and brought so much joy and insight at the moment.

It had been such an incredible journey that losing sight of its purpose really had warped and broken an irreversible part of me. But it was just a part of me, not a part of them. It is always hard to separate the projected concept from reality when we only get a peepholes worth of insight at any one time.As the chapters kept progressing and the comments and likes slowed, it was like a grape montaging into a raisin as my heart withered. Sure that seems dramatic to some, but a perceived crowning achievement comes with heavyweights and when people come down to the river and randomly start kicking those weights into the depths below, its impossible not to get dragged down.

What I couldn't separate from is that it still touched people. Maybe not the way it had, but I had set out to tell a story that was real, with real emotions and deep thoughts that made people think. That's all I had ever wanted to do and that's what I should have stuck with.

So as I sat there, eyes gently closed as the cold tangibility of the glass rested firmly against the tip of my lip and the tip of my tongue, I tilted the glass slowly up so as not to relish too quickly in the crisp solace its residing liquid provided when it washed over my wanton taste buds.

Wanton. That's how CS had started, and in some cases, that's where it went wrong. By practically starting with sex, there was nothing to build up to and nothing that could develop after that. Much like the wine that slid over the second warmest cavern on my body, the temptation to indulge had been too great. With each fluid rich mouthful, it had caused a madness that had to be expelled in as many ways as possible, leaving very little room for reality to flesh out its voracious one-night stand personality. With no outright depth, and an awkward after-sex conversation that fell flat, CS had nothing to capture a wanting audience; at least one that hadn't seen the overlying message; that indulgence was destructive and broken relationships held by the band-aid of intimacy stagnating everyone around involved.

Tilting the glass back down before placing it gently to the left of me on the table I breathed in and out deeply. "Not this time. This time we aren't going to do things backward." Glancing down at the clock at the bottom right of the screen I noticed it was 2:00 A.M. "And definitely not tonight." Reaching up and under my Insignia 75" TV screen to turn it off while my computer went into sleep mode, I gently rolled the chair back and rose. Tomorrow was another day and even if it took a dozen tomorrow's one couldn't remain broken forever.

Walking the three feet to the bed, I climbed in, wiggled under the sheets and fell victim to depths of another dreamless night; the illumination of the tv screen fading in time with my consciousness.


	2. The Unhappy Reunion

When I awoke, not having anything terribly pressing to do since I didn't have to work, I took note of the pregnant pause that charged the air with a familiarity I wasn't really willing to tackle without coffee. Snuggling deeper into my sheets, which felt slightly scratchier and smelled a little mustier than I remember, I took advantage of my shaded surroundings as light attempted to pour into the slits of the door before me.

Five more minutes. My brain said groggily as it attempted to retreat back into the blackened depths of its dreamless abyss before the world around it made more unreasonable demands. As my brain attempted to comply it took note of the slight freshness of the air that was no longer lined with the scent of my Snuggly Sweater scented candle that I had burned later in the day, the hallow reverberation of movement outside the walls that surrounded me, and in what should have been the final lucid moments before my thoughts lulled me into unconsciousness the berating alto of a man somewhere outside bellowed.

"Now listen here you shit stain ridden maggots. You're gonna run this course until I'm satisfied and if I'm not, you will run it until you can't and once you can't you can come to clean my office with what's left of your pride. Now get to running before I change my mind and make you do it all anyway!"

Why did that voice sound familiar?

"YES SIR, CAPTAIN!" Over a dozen voices chimed out in unison before what could only be compared to a stampede of zebra descended upon the horizon to the left.

Captain? Did I leave the T.V. on? My mind now thoroughly confused begins the process of clawing sanity out of the sleepy jaws of sloth as I lift myself up onto an elbow; my eyes still closed in rebellion. I really need to make sure I shut everything off before...

Now fully conscious as my brain latches onto a radical idea it isn't quite prepared to process, I hear faint purposeful footsteps walking towards my door. Even and firm but not overly heavy, my breathing becomes quiet and shallow unconsciously as I wonder, waiting like the prey caught in a spider's web, what my current situation has in store for me.

Closer...closer...closer...then the steps stop. Though the figure still seems far, I can tell by the way the echo of each step bounced off the walls that I and the figure are now perpendicular to one another. Separated, by a door I now realize I don't recognize as my own, I strain my ears to hear the jiggle of a knob. Several moments pass and there is neither the sound of a knob being turned nor the footfall of the figure as they move towards or away from my current position.

Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. My brain interjects in its moment of panic like that will assuage my fears circling around my perceived level of sanity. Making the what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about-you're-an-idiot-and-I'm-exasperated-with-your-stupidity face at myself I wonder why the hell my sanity takes top priority when I could find myself dead in a story I DIDN'T WRITE!

That's when the gears click and my head slowly turns to scan the room, concern over my potential intruder thrown on the back burner momentarily. The room when I touch its walls is made from a hard rock similar to cement with windows at chest level. This particular one has a bed against the right wall, a desk under the window so the writer can look out at the sky and find the inspiration lost to the heavens, two bookshelves fit into each wall of the corner next to the table, and a dresser. Above the dresser is a mirror that if you stand on top of the bed...

That's when the door opens and I, half crouched on the bed, lock eyes with a very angry raven-haired Captain. Fortunately, I had actually gone to bed in some semblance of clothing last night, being too lazy to undress. Unfortunately, it meant he had no qualms about snatching my hair at the back of my head and dragging me out of the room and down the hall.

"Ow Levi what the ever-living Fuuuuuuahhh."

Losing my breath and almost my consciousness as the tiny Raven body slams me into the wall giving my head a good crack, I find myself gasping and whining in pain as his rabid pitbull of a face gets up into mine. I had never pictured him this angry, nor would I have ever written him this way but every fiber of my being felt the anger he seethed.It was as if it was his entirety and no modicum of tact or sanity existed besides the tendons that kept him tangibly tethered to this world.

"What did you call me you worthless street cunt?"

"Well..."I gasp trying to focus on talking so the stars will stop spinning "...at least..." gasp "...you got the cunt part right." I try to smirk but that was the absolute incorrect response, though I'm convinced anything would have been. I can see the hate in his eyes as he launches me off the wall and onto the floor in front of him, making sure not to give me enough clearance that I can actually avoid the severe kick to the ribs I get for my insolence. 

Coughing and retching despite not having anything to expel, I try to roll away so my stomach is protected. This just costs me a kick to the shoulder, the back and eventually the ass as I scramble to my knees before getting up and leaning against the wall.My lungs burn.I can't get enough air to move. I'm going to blackout. I'm going to spend my one and only "real moment" with the man I had sworn to love in another life dying by his hands.

Well if I'm gonna go out, at least do it in style.

"Such a..." wheeze "...charmer." Cough. "You treat all your toys this way..." wheeze then wince "...or are you only a petulant angry shrimp with people you know will make you look and feel good when you beat them into the ground?" Knowing this will by NO MEANS lighten my esteem in his eyes, I glare at him with reserved indifference; the wall the only thing holding me up and conscious since I also happen to be leaning into an empty torch holster.

I have never in my life felt I have stared death in the eyes as I watched it come for me until now. About ninety percent of me thought he would charge me then and there and beat me until I was a puddle of indiscernible flesh. The rest of me though someone somewhere would somehow know I was in distress and intervene. Never had I thought I would be toyed with before my eventual demise like some violent Dom x Sub kink show.

His eyes never left mine nor did they blink as he slowly removed his scout jacket and hung it on a different empty torch holster on his right. Pretty impressive really if you think about it, arrogant and impressive, but this was Levi we were talking about. I was just as impressed he could reach the damn torch holster to begin with let alone do it without looking; he had to have practiced, though as a result of what I didn't want to know. With his jacket secure, he slowly unbuttoned each sleeve and rolled it up so they tucked firmly and neatly above his nicely muscled, though pale, forearms. When his second arm was done and he moved to crack all the knuckles on his hands, I decided to push the envelope yet again.

I really shouldn't push my luck. It's a shame I don't learn. But that stone face of his really gets on my nerves. It always has.

"You know if you really want to pursue a woman you have to be willing to understand her emotions and give her yours as well. No one likes to just be used for a good time."

There was only one way to test the theory that I had somehow been thrown into the very story I had created.If this was true I not only had to know when I was but what relationships I still had. The look on Levi's face told me everything.

"What...what did you...say?" And just like that, his motions became guarded and skeptical. The anger replaced with uncertainty and creasing of his eyes as he focused on reading the lies he thought my body held.

"You heard me. I'm not some senseless Stray everyone found on the street." Dig it in. Draw him in. Force a reaction.

"Stray huh. That's an interesting choice of words."

"She was an interesting woman and one I knew well, because, you see, I am her and she is me."

Crossing his arms he looked at me critically, ignoring my level of distress; so like him. "And who is that? I don't remember letting trash in let alone someone as insolent as you."

Gulping and panting as my eyes fluttered in an attempt to keep them open, I pulled enough strength to throw out one last lifeline. "That's because you didn't. She didn't fall into your arms until after she had fallen into the Commander's night after passionate night. By then it was too late. She was already in love with the only Titan headquarters couldn't kill outright." Then, as the final words left my bloody lips courtesy of my nose bleeding signaling what was most likely a concussion, my body collapsed and my eyes closed as I slid to the floor. The last thing I saw was Levi's leanly muscled body walking towards me moments before the world went dark and I was lifted up.

I sure had a knack for dying in this world. Guess only time would tell if I woke up and this was a dream, or if the story really ended here before it ever really began.


	3. Captured And Dead?

My consciousness has never been a huge fan of throwing me into unpleasant situations without a proper assessment of all avenues associated with said situation. Usually, that requires some level of intelligent cognizance, which, at the moment, I was desperately lacking. What I wasn't lacking was the ability to have ANY cognitive thought, which instead confirmed the only building block for tangible reality to exists. I. WAS NOT. DEAD. Good talk. 

What I was, was in excruciating cranial pain and I do ever so much hate headaches. They are the only thing besides severe stupidity, lack of coffee/bad coffee, being hangry, and PMS to ever put me into instant bitch mode.

Needless to say, that meant I had less than zero tolerance for the conversation happening as my consciousness crawled its way through the cloud of pain radiating through my skull. 

"And she knows Rhey?" A deeper male alto's voice rumbled across my eardrums like the sea crashing over the shore in a voice dripping with skepticism and caged expectation.

"Not knows, is. Her exact words were along the lines of 'I know her because I am her and she is me.'" The familiar half bored and hyper cynical voice of Levi retorted.

"Interesting. And you believed her? It's not like you to take someone at your word when you don't know them." The deeper alto, whom I couldn't quite place questioned.

"If he had given her a chance to give him her word before beating her almost to death, maybe we could have gotten better answers." A slightly nerdy and emotionally expressive voice-only possessed by Hanji sounds out close to my ear, making me internally flinch in surprise as I hadn't even sensed breathing there; creepy-ass. 

"You shut your trap four eyes or I'll reconstruct your body so it looks like a titan."

"Not wrong there Captain. Why didn't you question her first?" The male asks with curiosity. 

For a moment no one speaks and the air in the room gets heavy. I want to move to get up but also want to know why assault and battery was the go-to reaction, not that I didn't know it was practically a knee jerk reaction for Levi. 

"She was in Rhey's room standing on her bed. Not recognizing her as a cadet, I immediately assumed some flea-ridden shit snuck in to get a free night's sleep. It isn't in my nature to ask questions in those situations."

I can hear the intake of breaths from both the male and Hanji but refusing to let this silliness continue when all I wanted was peace and quiet, I interjected. 

"It's not like that pint-sized honey badger is capable of even giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Hell, he's the walking epitome of 'Its easier to ask forgiveness than permission." That's when I try to sit up and cry out sharply in pain as my head and stomach lance with conflicting degrees of agony. 

"If she is feeling good enough to run her mouth, then questioning her further..." Levi dully threatened as he separated himself from the wall effortlessly. 

"I would advise against it." Hanji's concerned voice cut the Captain off as her hands came to rest lightly on my rib cage and lower back. "You cracked several of her ribs; I think Levi. She needs rest, not to be harassed. I'm sure any information you need can be gleaned as soon as she can reply without it risking further injury to her body."

Levi clicks his tongue in annoyance.

"Hanji's right. What you did wasn't precisely self-defense Levi. She was unarmed and posed no immediate threat. For as excellent of a solider you are, you are as equally unrefined socially." The man whom I now recognized to be Erwin directed towards the Captain.

In the same moment, his comment ceased, the pain receded enough for me to finally take in the blonde Adonis I had tangled up in Rhey since the moment they met. To say he cut a sharp figure was to immediately dull every knife that supposedly carried an estimated sharpness equal to his in comparison enough that one no longer felt it adequately cut anything but its inanimate pride as cutlery. 

His jaw had such perfectly chiseled lines one could use it to ruler any straight line with architectural precision. His nose was so proportional that Pythagoras would have enlisted a woman to scorn him in the same way Van Gough was to see if the Commander would cut it off and discard it, leaving Pythagoras with the perfect triangle. His eyes were so deep that between them and the breadth of his chest, one could get lost in him at shoulder height for eternity as if held in the arms of an oasis, one could only reach staring into him.

He was even more mesmerizing than I had fantasized. 

"You won't catch anything but flies if you stand there, panting like a bitch in heat." Levi's acidic cynicism sliced through the illusion I was unknowingly lounging in. 

Blinking my eyes and ignoring his taunt, I clamped my mouth shut. "My apologies, Commander. I was taken back by the sheer force of your presence."

"I take no offense. We did not mean to disturb you, get a report on your well being. Indeed, there is much we need to discuss, but that can wait until you can receive us."

Though I could see the severe glint in his eye and the firm set of his shoulder meant he would get the answers he sought of that I should not doubt, it took a force of will not visibly to express what tricks my mind crafted. As my mind glitched, my eyes slowly closing as I breathed in deeply to hide my lewd reverie spawned from the thought of him coaxing said answers effortlessly from me. The sheer weight of his body as it guided me down into the mattress at the same time one set of hands interlaced as my other dragged through his freshly washed locks while he slid under my back to caress down the hollow of my spine. The feel of his lips on mine, my chin, my neck as he asked, and I relinquished anything and everything. No permission granted; no permission asked...

"You might want to dunk her outside in the trough with a face that red. Her brains fried enough as it is. We wouldn't want her stupidity spreading." Levi spat before walking out, and irritated edge laced into his hard steps and stiff movements. 

"You are rather red all of a sudden. Let me check your temperature." Hanji says before turning and digging through the organized chaos of her examination room tables. 

"I'll take that as my time to leave. My wishes for your speedy recovery. Please know my door is open so you can send it for me if needed." Then he half bows before turning and taking a step.

As if the wind that travels with his retreat brings me to awareness, lifting the fog of my shamelessness, I call to him as an overwhelming panic takes me. "Commander! Just one question?"

Looking over his shoulder, Erwin raises an eyebrow before turning to face me. "What is it?"

Retracting the hand I had not intended to extend towards him; I ask the one thing I wished I could avoid. "You may think I'm crazy, but I have to know. Was the last battle with the titans the one where you fought Zeke, Reiner, and Bertholdt? Because I'm guessing that's where Rhey disappeared. If so, I want to know because otherwise everything she is and was has been lost."

I watch as Erwin glances briefly at Hanji before looking back at me. "You are correct; that was the last battled. It ended not that long ago."

Not wanting to push my luck but needing to know more, I asked again. "I see. Are there still only around eight of you or did more survive?" I felt rather than saw the dangerous shift in his eyes as he looked on me and didn't release his eyes or his focus. The sheer intensity made me weak. 

"Many more survived thanks to the tactics we employed." 

"I see. And..."Then a searing pain tore through my abdomen, making me gasp. And buckled over.

"That's more than one. You need your rest, and the Commander has a lot of paperwork to do, so why don't you rest and let the rest wait until later, hmmm?" Hanji's sweet, friendly voice came from behind before my shoulders. We're pulled back gently and guides to the bed.

"Yes, thank you, Commander."

"You are welcome." Then he turned and walked into the darkening hallway, the soft glowing torches lengthening his shadow to match the one cast by me thanks to the truth of our sins always reaching farther that the light of the halo we fashion out twisted dreams, broken hearts and empty promises bannered under the words GREATER GOOD.


	4. Days To Come

_We run, faces to the wind_

_It'll get easier_

_When you breathe it in_

_Fall, gently give in  
Swallow in the air  
And rain on skin  
Hurts will come undone  
All that will become  
Rise and fall behind  
Weightless in rewind  
I feel the shifting of you getting closer  
My eyes wide open underneath the sun  
Follow the feeling, but patiently waiting  
I lose my feelings to oblivion  
Days  
I feel it  
Days  
I feel it  
Quietly I keep you close to me  
Quietly I feel you when I'm dreaming  
Quietly I keep you close to me  
Quietly I feel you when I'm dreaming  
Quietly I keep you close to me  
Quietly I feel you when I'm dreaming  
Quietly I keep you close to me  
Quietly I feel you when I'm dreaming  
Follow the feeling, but…_

Days to Come by Seven Lions

\-------------------------------------------

There had only been one threshold before today that, when Erwin crossed it, he felt the shift of the fabric of the world as the finality of something tore his soul asunder. He had felt it like the torture victim whose skin is slowly flayed back layer by layer leaving him to just watch and scream as a piece of himself is taken and a bloody anguished mess is left to stare at the sodden pile that was his perfect life as it lay across the floor from him in transparent heaps; glistening like his dreams had done in a life now dead. It didn't matter that in reality the blood on him hadn't been his. All that mattered was that first step back into headquarters after the battle had solidified a horror he never realized he was unprepared to face.

She was gone and he had faced an evil he should have taken on in her place. Something in his gut told him as he watched the barrel explode in mid-air that the person who had intercepted it would never come back alive. At the time he had dismissed it. There was an enemy in front of him; one that intended to cut him down indiscriminately. As such, he had to face his own challenge head-on and leave the rest to those who would hold the line behind them. So face it he did, per her instructions.

" _With your faces to the wind, your heart in your throat and your body sacrificing even its last bit of energy trying to survive you will force the Beat Titan to make a choice. There aren't many, but sometimes less is more."_

That had been what she had said that second before she went to assist Eren and the others fight behind the wall. He hadn't looked back. She hadn't looked back. They had just done what they had come to do. Never promising more than the moment, never leaving things hanging they parted ways under a clear sky with hopeful hearts and a fate no man should be able to escape. A fate she didn't escape.

As his forces had split, half going left to ride and attack the Titans there, half going right to attack the ones there with a Levi decoy in the center riding up the middle, the plan had been to hide Levi among one of the sides so he could ride up and use his gear to vault from body to body until he reached the Beast to assassinate it. In so doing, the Beast would be forced to chose. Throw shrapnel into its own and try to kill everything on one side or the other OR try to kill "Levi and Erwin" as they raced towards him head-on.

Erwin had been skeptical at first, thinking the Titan's would kill the men of both sides as they charged leaving the Beast to shatter what was left as it waited patiently. That had not been the case. It had been smart to line all the men up vertically instead of allowing them to run in a cluster towards each side. This left only a thin line with the lead horse running parallel to the Beast Titan forcing it to attack a single unit on either side as they raced towards the line of Titan's. This meant a smaller target and a greater chance that larger numbers would reach the Titan line to create a diversion.

" _Throw them into chaos. Make them moving targets. Make it hard for the Beast to get a good shot in without destroying everything in the process. Kill only when and if you have to. There are no hero's out there so cut the dumb shit. Don't get in each other's way and most importantly don't get in Levi's. He has to get to the beast and take him down."_

Her plan had worked flawlessly. The beast had tried to take down the left and then the right with rocks, but the teams were tight and well trained so only a few were lost by the time they reached the Titan line. Once there, they threw the Titan's into chaos. Though able to command a part of them, The Beast could not hold control over so many mindless instinct-driven bodies.

As the lines broke, Levi had swung from Titan to Titan until he was able to get behind the beast with the help of other scouts leading them towards their target. Riddled with frustration, the beast had begun just flinging stone anywhere he thought he could kill a person. Though his erratic movements were impossible to anticipate, the Titan's became good meat shields as men hopping from body to body like grasshoppers in a meadow of tall grass filled the open plain.

In the end, a heavily wounded Zeke was carried off by an intelligent carrier Titan leaving Erwin and his men to recover some semblance of order before killing off the remaining titans. It had been a moment of immense joy soon destroyed by the news that, though success had also been met behind the wall, their Queen had been sacrificed of her own will.

That news hadn't seemed real, not even as Levi's devastated eyes turned hard with anger as he lunged at Eren who told them the news.

"Where is she! Tell me you shit nosed brat!" he had screamed as he raised his fist to beat Eren's face in.

"Captain!" Hanji had screamed. "Captain she is dead. There is nothing left. Her body was cut apart when pieces of the barrel ripped through her. The rest was incinerated instantly by the steam the Colossal Titan emitted trying to stay alive. Fortunately, she had cut into its spine at the neck so when it fell and slammed into a roof it broke off the rest of the way when it impacted head first. We made sure to slice up the rest of its body and rip out its spine just in case." Holding up the dried bloody spine Hanji confirmed the story.

They had lost Levi after that. Even though he was still there in body, he never followed them back to headquarters, nor did anyone see him until Historia requested his presence and Kenny went to retrieve him. From that moment on there was a detachment to him. Though his personality was mostly back, his edge was gone. Then this woman had shown up and Levi had beaten her with every ounce of his own regret he would let loose.

So as Erwin walked under the arch that separated his past from his present, his reality from his dreams as he walked out of the examination room he felt the same separation of self, but this time in reverse as if pieces that had been stolen were being layered back bit by bit with each step he took forward.

He had never dealt with how losing Rhey had felt. In truth, he had never accepted her absence. She was still engrained so heavily in everything he did and everywhere he went his mind still saw her. There had even been times where he had seen her out of the corner of his eye but when he went to look she had been gone. Then as he stood before the woman who claimed to know the woman who had haunted him since her arrival, he found he wasn't sure he wanted to know who she really was. If she was who she claimed to be, then the woman he had loved and fought to keep had never really existed and only been a product of someone else's fantasies.

He refused to accept such a tangible soul had been such an egregious figment. If it was true though and Rhey never existed, why was this woman here? What was her purpose? Did she wish to implant herself as the character she had created or would she destroy everything she herself had built? There didn't seem a reason for any of this to happen, yet here they all were. Not even aware of how lost in thought he was as he walked, Erwin was taken by surprise when a hauntingly skeptical voice cut through his conscience.

"Do you believe what she said?" Levi asked as he came to walk level with the towering Commander.

Stopping to look out a window at a scene of peace and blind hope as citizens went about their daily lives unaware of being the pawns in a much larger game of chance, Erwin took a moment to reflect before responding. "I believe the two are connected. She seems to have intimate knowledge of things she has not seen in our presence. That either makes her a spy or who she claims to be."

"Which would you prefer her to be?"

Frowning, Erwin answered honestly. "A spy. A least then my memories remain just that and I am not forced to accept that all that we shared was a lie in someone else's fantasy." Then he turns and looks at Levi whose eyes still remain locked on a point somewhere in the distance outside the window.

"Do you hate her?" He asks.

"I can not hate what I do not know," Erwin replies matter of factly.

"Do you hate HER?" Levi's eyes now glistened with a sadness only rarely captured so honestly. "Because I do. I hate her for leaving. I hate her for sacrificing herself. I hate her for leaving me like this. For leaving me lost and dependent." Turning his head away to look down the hall he sets his lips. "I won't forgive her. Even if she wasn't real I will never forgive her because in that moment as in every moment I was with her I was whole and there was hope." Then he sniffled once. "Now I'm just broken and all that's left is her shadow."

That's when Levi squares his shoulders and the cold mask he hid behind all these years returns to his face as his eyes turn sharp and distant. "Let me know when she is cleared to leave. I have some questions for her."

"I think we both do." Erwin nods in acknowledgment which earns him a nod in return before the captain strides down the hall; his shadow the only thing still clinging to a life that exists between them as it grows taller and taller while the man himself breaks apart in the distance of the dark dank hallway.


End file.
